Croatia - The Island of Brac

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September 1st 2007

Published: September 16th 2007

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Shaz Guy

The fishing village of Sutivan where we stayed for 2 weeks

On Saturday 18th August we caught the ferry across from Split to the Island of Brac, the closest island to Split and a journey of one hour. We arrived in the main island town of Supetar and then caught a bus around to the village of Sutivan, where we had booked an apartment for two weeks. It was unbelievably hot when we finally got to Sutivan with limited directions on how to find our apartment, however we managed to find it even if we walked twice as far as was necessary.

The village of Sutivan was small with only a couple of restaurants, two small supermarkets and a bakery and whilst there were some tourists staying there it also had a local feel which is what we were after. The beach, like most Croatian beaches was small and rocky, and you really needed shoes to get into the water. Once you managed to get in to the water it was beautiful, green and clear with lots of fish swimming around. Despite being only a small village the beach was absolutely packed, mainly with Croatian families enjoying the end of the European summer and the last 2 weeks of school holidays.

The rocky foreshore at Sutivan

We swam and sunbathed here to avoid the crowds of the main town beach

We did very little during our first week there, with mornings spent at the beach or lying on the rocks further out of town (to avoid the crowds) and the afternoon reading or just taking it easy. On the Friday we caught two buses to the town of Bol on the other side of the island. Bol is famous for its beach, called Zlatny Rat, which is a 400 metre pebbly prominade that juts out from the island. The beach really was beautiful, if a little crowded. The small pebbles were far more comfortable to lie on and walk on than the large rocks at Sutivan, and the water was crystal clear and very refreshing.

Bol had a number of big package hotels, loads of apartments and so many tourists which gave it a resort feel. In hindsight it would have been better if we'd stayed in Sutivan for a week and Bol for a week as getting between the two was not easy without a car. The bus trip was around 70 minutes in total each way, but the buses didn't connect that well and we spent around 6 hours travelling all up. Therefore during the 2nd week

Sutivan at night

This was the main road running down to the harbour

we hired a car and drove to Bol three days in a row which was a far easier 40 minute travel time (only once did Guy try to drive on the wrong side of the road but was soon alerted to his mistake by his ever alert navigator). One afternoon at Zlatny Rat around 5pm we were entertained by a classical vocal group of around 7 men who were performing in the middle of the beach. It was very impressive, even more so given the setting.

We also caught a ferry from Bol to Hvar Town, on the island of Hvar for a day trip. On the boat trip there we were surprised to see a fire fighting plane touch down in the water beside us several times to scoop up water to fight fires that had broken out on the island. Hvar Town, like other Croatian towns and cities, was a lovely little place. We went through an old fort overlooking the city, and had terrific views of the town, the Pakleni Islands in the background, and also the fire fighting plane which was still loading up with water every 5 or 10 minutes to fight the fires.

The beach at Supetar

This was one of the better beaches, next to the harbour.

We also wandered around the town admiring the way that the Croatians had created a beach resort feel even though there was no real beach. They had done this by creating platforms next to the water covered with sun chairs and bars. The boat trip was interesting as this was one of the few windy days we encountered while we were on Brac and there were reasonable sized wind waves. particularly on the way back. We elected to sit at the front of the boat, facing the breeze (and at times substantial sea spray) as Sharon sometimes suffers from sea-sickness. As we approached Bol on the return journey however the captain called us back inside the cabin as flashes of lightning lit up the sky.

On Saturday 1st September we left Sutivan and Brac after an enjoyable and relaxing two weeks. If anyone is in the area we strongly recommend a visit to the beach at Zlatny Rat.

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